Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.08.2010, Blaðsíða 40

24
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2010
Alarm clock rings. Press the snooze
button (but accidentally turn off
alarm). Alarm clock doesn’t ring. Wake
up twenty minutes late. Kids are still in
bed, try to wake them up gently. Pack
lunches, pick out clothes (fell asleep
watching TV and didn’t plan the day).
Yell at kids to hurry up. Out the door,
start the car. Forgot the youngest, run
inside and grab him. Socks don’t match.
Drive 15 km over the speed limit. Late
to drop kids off at school. Teacher
bitches about disturbing class again.
Late to work. Accidentally switched
presentation note cards with arithmetic
note cards. Day is fucked.
This is the start of a “Cellophane
day”—a day where one little mistake
can snowball into an inescapable shit-
storm. “Cellophane” playwright and
actress, Björk Jakobsdóttir, claims she
used to have these kinds of days all the
time when her kids were younger and
life moved in fast motion.
Björk grew up in Hafnarfjörður,
where she established the Haf-
narfjörður Theatre, famed for showing
new Icelandic plays and creative ad-
aptations. After a while, Björk found
herself playing the same roles—second
in command to the leading male char-
acter. She started reading monologues
and kept thinking to herself, “Why isn’t
anybody writing about me?”
Björk’s solution to this question was
to leave her kids with her husband for
four days and write ‘Cellophane’. When
I asked Björk how she came up with the
idea for the play, she replied, “I have no
idea why I wrote ‘Cellophane’, it just
came to me.” Best described as a co-
medic monologue, ‘Cellophane’ starts
out with leading lady, Helen, dressed in
lingerie and boxing gloves, dancing and
posing to the Rocky theme (or some-
thing like it). Delivered like a stand up
comic routine, ‘Cellophane’ chronicles
a day in the life of a busy mother/wife/
career woman. One-liners like “I wish
we [humans] just had a mating sea-
son” poke fun at ridiculous sex advice
in women’s magazines among other
modern problems for the middle-class
mother of two.
CELLOPHANE WORLdWIdE
Cellophane has been shown in over
twelve countries, the performance on
June 24th at Iðnó marking the first
English rendition of the play. Helen,
played by Þórunn Lárusdóttir, managed
to elicit enough bursts of laughter from
the audience to consider ‘Cellophane’s’
translation into English a success. Björk
explained that British humour is very
similar to Icelandic humour. “The Brit-
ish are very open about their sex lives
and the same is true in Iceland. We also
go extreme.” As well as appealing to
a certain style of humour, Björk adds
country-specific cultural references to
each performance of Cellophane.
Björk describes how ‘Cellophane’
has been received elsewhere she tells
me that the play has been running well
in Finland. “It was very interesting to
read the reviews from Sicily. I think they
are ten years behind us in equality. The
play became so political in Sicily when
it’s more of having a laugh about it in
Iceland.”
When I asked Björk if she thought
‘Cellophane’ specifically targeted a fe-
male audience she complained: “When
a woman writes a play with a female
lead, then people only see it as a ‘wom-
an’s play’. If a man writes a play with
a male lead, you don’t hear about how
it is only for men. It is no less for men
than it is for women.”
PAST THE PLASTIC WRAP
For a play like ‘Cellophane’, a lot de-
pends on the actress’s comedic tim-
ing and ability to connect with the
audience. During the performance I
witnessed, Þórunn stumbled over a few
lines but for the most part her perfor-
mance as Helen was believable. In the
silent spaces, when Helen would sigh
between conversations with the au-
dience or imaginary characters, she
expressed emotional depth that went
past the light-hearted jokes. The audi-
ence felt Helen’s distress in those mo-
ments. Þórunn’s physical expressions
carried just as much weight as her abil-
ity to deliver lines.
The title ‘Cellophane’ stems from
advice taken from a woman’s maga-
zine—the idea being to wrap yourself
in cellophane like a sex toy in order to
rouse your husband. Björk explains,
“Women’s magazines are so stupid.
People think they can sell women any-
thing: 10 ways to talk to your vagina, 10
ways to be a better mother, 10 ways to
turn on your husband. You would never
see this with men: 10 ways to talk to
your dick, 10 ways to be a better father,
10 ways to please your woman. We are
so hard on ourselves. There is some-
thing wrong with us. There is a lack of
confidence in us women.”
What is Björk’s secret to ignoring
women’s magazines and finding happi-
ness among all those Cellophane days?
“1. Choose the father of your children
carefully 2. Deal with life through
humour rather than guilt. 3. Have a
hobby.” I asked Björk what she hoped
people would learn from Cellophane.
She replied, “Don’t be so hard on your-
self; you are not alone. And it’s OK if
you only do it two times a month.”
Catch a performance of Cellophane at Iðnó
Theatre on Sundays & Thursdays at 20:00.
Art | Comedy
Cellophane
A play about having a shit day, but taking comfort in knowing
you’re not the only one
EMILy BURTON
PROMOTONIAL PICTURE
“When a woman writes
a play with a female lead,
then people only see it as a
‘woman’s play’. If a man
writes a play with a male
lead, you don’t hear about
how it is only for men.“
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